First Century After the Expulsion 73 
     
    
   
   
    
     who already had experience in farming. According to John McGregor 
     
     the latter included a number of Loyalists and Englishmen and a few 
     
     Scots’®. The majority knew very little about cultivating the soil and 
     
     some of the settlers were farming for the first time in their lives. 
     
    

    
     Very little information is available pertaining to the agricultural 
     
     practices of the Acadians of the time. John McGregor and other observ- 
     
     ers reported that the Acadians were using rudimentary and backward 
     
     methods and unfortunately were not following the example of their 
     
     more successful neighbours”’. The Acadians persisted in keeping their 
     
     one-handled plough while other farmers were using a more efficient 
     
     Scottish-type plough with two handles and a cast-iron mould-board®. 
     
    

    
     The Acadian community remained for a long time at the pioneer- 
     
     ing stage. They had better luck with freshly cleared land than with 
     
     land that had run out as a result of planting the same crops for several 
     
     years in succession*'. During his visit to Egmont Bay in 1825, Célestin 
     
     Robichaud noted that farmers grew potatoes the first year in new 
     
     ground, then beautiful wheat the second and third years, and oats 
     
     the fourth year*?. 
     
    
   
   
    
     CROPS 
     
    
   
   
    
     As we have seen, the main crops on fle Saint Jean during the 
     
     French regime were wheat and peas. In the century that followed the 
     
     expulsion, the Acadians continued to prefer wheat to any other cereal. 
     
     At the beginning of the century, Acadian tenant farmers in Colonel 
     
     Compton’s Lot 17 all paid ten bushels of good wheat as part of their 
     
     annual rent®’. In 1856, the parishioners in Tignish contributed in one 
     
     day one thousand bushels of wheat to finance the construction of a 
     
     new church**. Other Island inhabitants like the Scots and the Irish 
     
     favoured the production of oats®>. 
     
    

    
     It was British settlers who introduced the potato to the Island. 
     
     Acadians adopted it quickly since it was easy to grow and the yield 
     
     was good. Potatoes were planted in newly cleared ground, even around 
     
     stumps. According to Célestin Robichaud’s account of his visit to 
     
     Egmont Bay, potatoes grew quite well, namely “one hundred bushels 
     
     to a thousand” (TR) or, in other words, one hundred bushels to one 
     
     thousand seed potatoes. Wheat yielded twenty to twenty-five bushels 
     
     per bushel of seed, and grass (hay) produced one or two tons per